Some of the sloppiest reporting seen in years at the NY Times

The NY Times article is entitled: “Record Level of Stress Found in College Freshmen”. The opening paragraph says: “The emotional health of college freshmen — who feel buffeted by the recession and stressed by the pressures of high school — has declined to the lowest level since an annual survey of incoming students started collecting data 25 years ago.”

But the referenced study never produced any evidence supporting these conclusions. The study did not measure the 200,000 participant’s actual mental health. It simply asked each participant to rate themselves on their own emotional health (as they perceived it in comparison to other college students). In 1985 64% of students rated themselves as having above average emotional health. But in the most recent study, only 52% of the students rated themselves above average.

Since exactly 50% of the group is above average, the more recent study showed that as a group they were better estimators, more realistic, and understood statistics, logic and the written word better than the class of students from 1985. But alas the NY Times writer and editor did not score so well.